The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  Hodge jerked as though I’d touched him with a live wire. He closed the space between us in one step, his fist up and swinging. I blocked it by raising my arm then backhanding him, all in one move. He staggered bonelessly into a crate, bounced, and flopped to the floor. He stopped moving.

  Rimik brought his knife out in the first second and swept it past me in a short arc to get my attention. He centered it with the blade at just the right angle to gut me like a fish. I held my ground and checked on Kyler out of the corner of my eye. He just stood there, watching the show, so I probably had a few seconds’ grace.

  His stooge was feeling playful. He tried an experimental thrust with the blade to get me to dodge back, only I didn’t. I shot my hand out and caught Rimik’s wrist, but the man was wise to that one and fast. He yanked his whole arm down, slipped away, and flicked the blade back up again.

  White fire ran along my forearm. Now I did fall back, clutching the part just below my elbow where he’d neatly sliced things open. A few drops of blood splashed onto the concrete, the rest soaked into my shredded sleeve.

  I wasn’t badly hurt, metal wasn’t as harmful to me as wood, but I had to pause a moment to keep from vanishing involuntarily to heal. The bleeding would stop quickly enough without such a complication and the pain would pass; at least I wasn’t in the part of the warehouse that was over the river or I might not have had a choice.

  What I couldn’t stomach now was the uneven hiss of air between Rimik’s teeth. He was laughing at me. It got me mad enough that I made another start for him.

  The knife flashed like miniature lightning just under my nose. He

  was still playing, trying to give me a scar to remember him by. And he was still laughing.

  I lost my temper then, and picked up the first thing that was handy; it happened to be a crate the size of a small suitcase weighing about forty or fifty pounds. We were no more than six feet apart and he had no room or time to duck. The look of gawking surprise that flashed over his face just as the crate caught him full in the chest was most satisfying.

  Two steps and I was standing over him, tearing the crate to one side. My fingers had just closed over the handle of his bowie knife when I felt something small and solid bump inarguably against my left temple. It was followed by a soft double click that I recognized all too well. My grip went slack; I stopped moving altogether.

  “Stand still,” Kyler ordered in his gentle voice.

  6

  I’D overlooked the driver simply because he was the driver.

  He’d thumbed the hammer back as a subtle warning to me. I wouldn’t get another. All it needed now was a minimum amount of pressure on the trigger to go off. While I was very busy not moving, Kyler walked around just enough to check on Rimik.

  “Lucky man,” he said. Rimik was still breathing. “Chaven, take the kid over there.” He nodded at another stack of crates that were too big to be thrown.

  The driver, Chaven, bumped my temple again with the muzzle of his gun. I let go of the knife and straightened cautiously. He gestured in the direction he wanted me to go. I stepped away from Rimik’s body and walked toward the crates. Two steps and I had to stop because the river below our feet was holding me back. Chaven put a hand in the middle of my back and pushed. It helped and got me past the point of no return.

  “Turn around.” Chaven had a voice like the edge of Rimik’s knife.

  I turned and was looking down the short barrel of his gun, noting that he favored a revolver over an automatic. Revolvers are simple tools, particularly the double-action type; there’s no need to remember about the safety or chambering a bullet or clearing a last-second jam. All you have to do is pull the trigger and it goes boom…. In this case, it could go boom right through my skull. The shot wouldn’t kill me, but it was an experience that I altogether preferred to avoid.

  Now I knew how far Kyler was willing to go with things. He and his men were ready to kill, and kill casually for whatever they wanted. I was dealing with human garbage.

  Chaven had a narrow, hatchet-hard face with no more emotion in it than the gun he held, so I watched his eyes. If he decided to do anything, I’d see it show up in them first.

  “He’s cold,” Chaven commented to his boss.

  Kyler hardly glanced up. “Only because he thinks I need him alive.” He came over to stand next to Chaven and to look at me more closely. “Well, I don’t.”

  The cut on my arm stopped burning and began to sting. I let my breath out slowly and drew another.

  “Your last chance,” he said, carefully spacing the words. “Where is the woman?”

  I waited a moment before answering, just so that Kyler knew I’d understood him. “On the level … I don’t know.”

  “Why do you have her suitcase?”

  “For safekeeping.”

  “Then you expect to see her again?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know for certain.”

  “I will guarantee her safety. I will even pay her. She, at least, might appreciate some compensation for her time. She’ll know me. She’ll know I’ll be fair.”

  “But I don’t know you.”

  “I’ve already noticed and allowed for that, or you’d be dead by now. You’re not stupid. Start asking around. You’ll find out all you need about me and how I work.”

  I’d already gotten a pretty clear idea. Chaven still held his gun three inches away from my nose and his hand was very steady.

  “I expect you to find her. When you do, tell her that if she leaves town before settling her business with me, she will regret it.”

  “I’ll let her know.”

  “Do that, Fleming.” Kyler’s gaze froze onto mine. It was like standing in front of the cobra exhibit at a zoo, but without any protective glass in between. “Do it as though your life depended upon it.”

  Kyler returned Doreen’s pistol—without the bullets—and had Chaven drive me to Bobbi’s hotel, where the Nash was parked. It was another silent ride. I hugged my sore arm and bit my tongue to keep from asking him anything. They could learn a lot about me from the kind of questions I might have, and I didn’t want any of them getting too curious. My best course was to keep a low profile; I was to be a messenger boy and nothing more.

  Chaven pulled up next to the Nash, braking only long enough for me to get out. The Caddy glided away out of sight. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief, made sure the street was empty, and vanished.

  It was swift and certain release from my pain. Through trial and a lot of error, I’d learned that going incorporeal speeded up the healing process. I floated around for a time and eventually sieved into Escott’s car to rematerialize and take stock.

  The bloodstains were alarming, but a little soap and water would clear them away. The seven-inch gash was already closed and had reduced itself to a nasty-looking red scar. It would fade soon enough. Too bad I couldn’t say the same for my memory. He was out of commission for now, but one of these nights I planned to pay Rimik back in full, and take my time about it.

  I considered going in to see Bobbi for a little cleanup and sympathy, but quickly decided against it. Kyler had made me paranoid. If his men were able to trail me from the studio to the Stockyards without getting spotted, they could still be on the watch. Walking back to the hotel might lead them to Bobbi, and I wasn’t about to involve her in this mess.

  Starting the car, I prowled around the streets. At this time of the morning, anyone following me would easily stand out. After half an hour of searching the mirror and seeing nothing, I felt reasonably safe and drove to Escott’s office near the Stockyards. I parked the car, locked it, and walked away, going around the block to the next street over. Being reasonably safe isn’t the same as being certain about it. I stood in a shadow-filled alley until the cold started to penetrate even my supernatural hide. Only one car came by, an old cab driven by a middle-aged man who looked both sleepy and bored. Not Kyler’s style at all.

  Vanishing again, I left the alley and felt my way two
doors down the block, slipping inside the third one with heartfelt relief. The first thing I sensed after going solid was the rich, earthy aroma of tobacco. It was a small shop, jammed with all the usual paraphernalia needed for a good smoke. Escott owned a half interest in the place and used it for more than just keeping his favorite blend on hand.

  I went around the small counter and up the narrow stairs. Woodson, the other owner, used the front section of the second floor for storage and never bothered with the back. The dust on the floor was undisturbed and I left it that way, choosing to float over it to get to the rear wall, where Escott had installed a hidden door. I didn’t bother messing with the catch and just seeped through, re-forming in the washroom of Escott’s office.

  My eyes automatically skipped past the mirror as I walked into the back room, which was furnished with a few bare necessities. Once in a while his work kept him late and he wasn’t above camping out here. His neatly made-up army cot was short on comfort, but adequate for an overnight stay. He also had a suitcase and a change of clothes on hand tor occasional out-of-town trips. I opened the door to the front room.

  Except for the blotter, phone, and ashtray, the top of his desk was (.lean. He was an extremely neat man, insisting on order and precision in every detail of his life, right down to the exact way his chair was centered into its well under the desk. I avoided moving it and sat in the other office chair.

  I used the phone and tried reaching him at the house but got nothing. I dialed police headquarters and asked for Lieutenant Blair. He’d gone home hours ago. When I asked for Escott, they’d never heard of him.

  He’d left no messages for me with his answering service. I wasn’t sure il I should be worried about him or not. I decided not, and gave them a message for him to check his safe deposit box when he came in. It was what he called the hidden compartment he’d installed behind the medicine cabinet in his washroom. Now all I had to do was put something in it lor him to find.

  He had a Corona and a ream of paper on the top of his file cabinet. I brought them down and started typing.

  It was a few minutes shy of dawn when I finally finished and put everything away. I tugged at the frame of the medicine cabinet and jammed the pages of my report into the narrow space .there. Escott may have liked things tidy, but I was tired and in a hurry. I shut the cabinet fast before it could all fall out again and quickly walked through the wall to the tobacco shop storeroom.

  Screened by a load of old crates and other junk was an especially long box that Escott had constructed for me as an emergency bolt hole. Ibis was the first time I’d ever felt jumpy enough to want to use it. I slipped through and materialized inside its cramped confines. Like my cot at home, the bottom was lined with a quantity of my home earth in a flat oilcloth bag. It was secure, but far too much like a coffin for much mental comfort. Fortunately, the sun came up before claustrophobia overcame common sense, and I was asleep for the day.

  There was no sense of waking for me, no coming up through the layers of sleep into full consciousness. When in contact with my earth, I’m either awake or not awake. It all depends on the position of the sun. I called my daytime oblivion sleep because it was a familiar word, not because it was accurate. Precisely at sunset the next night, my eyes opened, I remembered where I was, and wasted no time getting out. The box was useful enough, but I preferred being crammed into one of my steamer trunks.

  In the tobacco shop downstairs a door opened and shut—either a late customer or Woodson himself closing things up for the night. He knew about the hidden door, but not about my long box or its supply of Cincinnati soil. Escott and I had figured that, like a lot of people, he’d be much happier not knowing.

  No further sound came from below. I walked through to the rear of the office. On the radio that served as a nightstand was my typed report. In one corner stood Doreen Grey’s cheap suitcase. Escott was lying on his army cot, a pile of newspapers within easy reach on the floor and a crumpled afternoon edition folded over his face. The deep regularity of his breathing told me he was in dreamland.

  I really hated to wake him up. “Charles?”

  The paper rattled. He was a light sleeper. He dragged the paper away and sat up. “Good evening,” he said almost cheerfully. He did a beautiful double take. “Perhaps I should say good heavens. You look as though you’ve been busy.”

  “No need to be nice about it. We both know I look like something the cat dragged in. Can I borrow your razor?”

  “Please do. Whatever happened to your arm?”

  I’d omitted a few details about last night’s activities from the report. “Kyler’s boys play rough. Think your tailor can fix it?”

  “Your arm?” he deadpanned.

  “The clothes. My arm’s fine.” I peeled off my overcoat and suit coat. The blood had dried and all but glued everything to the skin. It looked terrible, but the damage beneath was almost healed by now. As I scrubbed off in the sink, I could see that last night’s angry red line was now a long, white welt. Eventually, even that would disappear, leaving no scar. “Did you get things straightened out with Lieutenant Blair?”

  He added his paper to the stack on the floor and stretched a little. “Yes, after I’d gotten hold of our employer and informed him of the murder. It gave him quite a serious turn but he came down to headquarters himself to see to things. Mr. Pierce is a formidable fighter. I was very glad that he was on my side. He managed to keep me free from any legal difficulties.”

  That was a relief; I’d been afraid that Blair would have Escott’s license yanked for wanting to protect his client for a couple of hours. “I tried calling you. They have you down there all night?”

  “No, it was Mr. Pierce who kept me so occupied. He insisted on buying me a late dinner to compensate a bit for the trouble I’d been to on his behalf, and then we got to talking.”

  “What was he doing while McAlister was getting murdered?”

  His sharp gray eyes glinted with approval. “He maintains he was at the Stumble Inn for several hours, conversing with Des the bartender and cleaning out his stock of sarsaparilla. Pierce was terribly shocked at the news about McAlister, doubly so that the murder had taken place at Kitty Donovan’s flat.”

  “The cops find her yet?”

  He shook his head.

  “What’s Pierce think of her as a suspect?”

  “He was partly incoherent, partly obscene, but wholly against the idea.”

  “What about Marian Pierce?”

  “She was in the company of Harry Summers, who was trying to patch up a quarrel they’d had over you.”

  “Oh, brother.”

  “It seems you made quite an impression on both of them.”

  “That goes double for me.”

  “Which reminds me … Pierce went ahead and let his daughter know what is going on.”

  “I’ll bet she was thrilled that I wasn’t really following her like she thought.”

  “One wonders what activities she engages in to inspire such secretiveness.”

  “Smoking, drinking, and necking—those are the ones I witnessed, at least. I think she’s just shy about having her daddy hear about them. He could take away her car keys. Have you heard from Doreen?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Shit.”

  “But after such a harrowing evening, one can hardly blame her for wishing to keep out of sight.”

  “From Leadfoot Sam, you mean. She doesn’t even know about Vaughn Kyler. If she leaves town before I can talk to her …”

  “Indeed,” he agreed. “I’ve made calls to one or two contacts I have. Since last night it has become common knowledge in Miss Grey’s… ah… social set that he’s looking for her. I daresay she’ll discover that for herself soon enough. The police are also trying to locate her.”

  “Wonderful, just what she needs. How’d they get on to her?”

  “I learned that they made another visit to the Boswell House and noticed the hole in the wall between the rooms.” />
  After removing the mirror, I hadn’t replaced it. They must have practically tripped over the mess. “What about her studio?”

  “They searched it but discovered nothing of value, nor any clue to her whereabouts.”

  “But I left a note there with the office phone number on it.”

  He tapped the typed sheets on the radio. “So you said, but the police either ignored it, which is quite unlikely, or she got there before them and took it away.”

  “Or Kyler’s men found it. They probably have the place staked out.”

  “And this one as well, if they troubled to trace the number down. You said they got my name from the car registration; I’m sure Kyler knows all about me and my little business by now.”

  I started to apologize or say something like an apology, but lie cut it off.

  “It’s part of the job,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. I’d forgotten that he enjoyed this kind of work. “I applaud your caution, but by now it may be superfluous.”

  “What do you know about Kyler?” I took it for granted that Escott would have some knowledge of the man, and I wasn’t disappointed.

  “Vaughn Kyler, as you correctly deduced in your report, has taken control of the gang formerly headed by Frank Paco. Kyler is not his real name and I’ve not been able to find it out. He is well educated, thought to be intelligent, and in less than six months has doubled the earnings off the rackets previously directed by Paco. We may reasonably conclude from this that he is ambitious and perhaps not a little greedy.”

  “The guy’s a snake,” I grumbled over the running water.

  “He also knows how to efficiently deal with any rivals. His chief competitors for his position, Willy Domax and Doolie Sanderson, have been missing since last August, along with half a dozen of their lieutenants. No one seems to be too anxious to speculate on their whereabouts, either.”

  “What about Frank Paco?”

  “He’s still in the sanitarium. Apparently he is not considered to be much of a threat.”